Over the coming months, the Calista Corporation expects to begin the process of enrolling tens of thousands of descendants as shareholders. The influx is expected to expand shareholder numbers from about 13,000 to approximately 40,000. Many of those shareholders will live in the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta, where the corporation is preparing to connect them and their families with job opportunities. To do that, the corporation brought a familiar face back to Bethel.
The size of the staff at Bethel's Calista office is doubling with the arrival of Yvonne Jackson.
“I was born in Bethel and raised in Kasigluk. I lived in Bethel for seven years. While I lived in Bethel, I worked as the employment specialist for the State of Alaska.”
Jackson went from working for the state in Bethel to living in Anchorage, where she filled a similar position at Coastal Villages Region Fund. Then she joined Calista.
“And just three weeks ago, they moved me to Bethel to expand our workforce development department here.”
Jackson’s job is to connect shareholders and their descendants and spouses with job opportunities, training, and funding for that training. And she's come to where the bulk of the shareholders are.
“We want to be able to make sure we’re reaching our shareholders and making sure that jobs are going to be ready and available for them. We want them to get ready for jobs with Donlin Gold, if permitting passes, but we also want to get them employable for Calista and subsidiary jobs, as well as jobs with our other ANCSA partners.”
Jackson says that there are a lot of different jobs available from construction to accounting, not just in Alaska, but elsewhere as well.
Jackson says that she is also reaching out to Bethel businesses and organizations to find out what their employment needs are and how Calista shareholders can fill those gaps.
This change comes as original shareholders, who were born on or before December 1971, are retiring out of the workforce and the new wave of descendants are enrolling.
Jackson will also be holding bi-monthly informational meetings for Calista shareholders at the Bethel office on opportunities and services within the corporation.
“I just kind of want to expose Calista Corporation to its shareholders and let them know that there’s more to being a shareholder than just receiving dividends.”
Calista's shareholders voted last year to allow shareholder enrollment to expand beginning in January.
